-The Indian Express With less than a fortnight left to roll out its direct cash transfer scheme, the government is trying to fast-track the process of identification and registration of beneficiaries for the 34 schemes. Accordingly, it has decided to set up camps in each of the 43 districts where direct cash transfers would be launched for preparing a central database of beneficiaries, enrollment for Aadhaar numbers and opening of bank accounts. “A...

Should they be targeted? Should they go to individuals or households? Are conditionalities necessary? Without a full consideration of these issues, cash transfers will remain an expensive gamble Having worked on cash transfers for over 25 years, and being an economist, I find recent criticisms of the idea shrill and ill-informed. Only a right-wing ideologue would call them a panacea or a cure-all. They would merely be a vast improvement on...

-The Hindu The technical glitches that plague cash transfers in Jharkhand may not have arisen with a simpler system that does not need Internet connectivity Pilot cash transfer projects taken up in Jharkhand for MGNREGA wages have achieved little success due to a variety of logistical, human and technological problems. A year after the launch of these projects, the problems remain unsolved. In Ramgarh district, a majority of the beneficiaries are in Dohakatu...

-Outlook Describing the government's ambitious direct cash transfer scheme as a "powerful tool", Reserve Bank Deputy Governor K C Chakrabarty has said the initiative will help reduce fiscal deficit, which in turn will also bring down inflation if implemented well. "The direct cash transfer scheme will reduce the fiscal deficit, which in turn will facilitate inflation control," Chakrabarty, the senior-most of the four deputy governors at the Mint Road, told PTI in...

-The Times of India Crest Cash transfers have been described as the world's favourite new anti-poverty device. As India gets set to implement it, TOI-Crest finds out if the politics will ever be divorced from the cash The UPA government's ambitious plan to introduce direct cash transfers (DCT) by January 1, 2013 reflects both the political desperation of a beleaguered government and the urgent need to reform India's inefficient and corrupt public...